Octavius moved deftly through the trees. He paused and ran his hand along the bark of a tree. The tree’s trunk was multiple feet in diameter, with thick brown bark that held a reddish tint. Above waist height, the side of the tree closest to him was covered in vibrant green moss, but below that, the trunk was laid bare. Small pieces of bark and clumps of moss were scattered on the forest floor below the tree. Exposed wood below the bark was in sharp contrast to the darker tones of the bark. Some sort of creature came through here recently and rubbed against the tree. Octavius thought.

Over the past two weeks, Octavius had taken to moving campsites around daily in a circular pattern around a small pond. The area was dense with underbrush and had a lot of beasts to hunt, along with freshwater. He had started laying traps in the area he occupied to try for some easy kills. It took him about a week to go through in the whole circle. That meant that some beast tore the moss and bark off the tree sometime in the past week.

He walked forward, crouched low, and placed his feet on the ground carefully. He’d gotten much more adept at his woodsmanship over the past few weeks and could now move much more quietly in the dense environment.

As he came upon the spot where he placed the trap he came to inspect, he took his spear in both hands and held it at the ready. He quietly inched around a large tree, and the trap came into view. He immediately relaxed his posture and walked forward normally: the trap was empty.

The trap was made of a paracord rope loop that would snap tight around whatever limb stepped into it. Of course, that wouldn’t hold any dangerous beast for long. The trap also had a wooden stick with a flint arrowhead attached to it. The stick was on a branch that was bent backward, and when the trap was sprung, it would launch forward. The arrowhead merely needed to stay in the beast’s body for maybe five seconds before the sedative took effect.

His discovery of the sedative was what gave him the idea for the traps. He was using his identity skill on all manner of things, from plants to animals. When he used identify on a sweet-smelling small, white flower.

Evolved Valerian (Uncommon) - This herb is a more potent strain of a common medicinal herb used to treat anxiety.

He didn’t immediately recognize the flower from sight, but he definitely remembered the name. It was a rather strong natural sedative. That night he took the roots of the plant and cut them into small pieces before boiling them. He let the mixture reduce until a thick paste was left. When he ate a small amount, he barely had time to haul himself onto a branch and tie himself down before passing out. He ended up sleeping for fourteen hours that night.

The next morning he was amazed. He looked over his status page just to be sure.

Name

Octavius J. Asher

Race

Human (F)

Level

9 - 2150/40000

Class

None

Titles

Forerunner

Health

500/500

Stamina

600/600

Mana

300/300

Strength

35

Dexterity

37

Agility

33

Constitution

30

Vitality

25

Perception

21

Intelligence

15

Wisdom

19

Will

31

Free Points

0

Status Effects

Sedated - You have been dosed with a strong sedative and are recovering. -20% Strength and Dexterity.

Skills

Identify (Lvl 11) - Discover information about a being or object. The amount of information is dependent on skill level and the object the skill is used on.

Speech (MAX) - You can speak all common humanoid languages.

He had a constitution of thirty, and the small bit he ate had knocked him out for the entire night and well into the next day and had given him a debuff.

After that experience, he started making the traps. As he walked toward the unsprung trap, he stepped on something round and stumbled slightly. He bent down to see what tripped him and found a wooden dowel with a flint arrowhead. He frowned, Maybe the knot holding the tree bent slipped?

He stood back up and walked around to the back of the large sapling he had used as a lever to launch the projectile. It was definitely not bent, but what confused him was that the rope was still attached, which meant the whole trap had gone off. Maybe I didn’t get here before the valerian wore off and whatever it was escaped?

He walked back around to the trigger mechanism and found that the loop was uncut. He looked closer to see if it just didn’t close in time to catch the beast before freezing. There was a small distortion in the air right beside the paracord loop. It looked like a heat mirage that one would see slightly above a road on a hot day.

Octavius immediately snapped his spear forward and prodded the mirage with the butt. His spear met something solid. Whatever it was didn’t move, so he tried using identify.

Xecsif - Thrall (F) (Lvl 21) (Mage)

His eyes widened. Not only was this creature level 21, the identify window was in the same format as when he identified people. That probably meant that whatever this thing was, it was sentient and appeared to have a class. He knew the initial message at the start of the tutorial said that his whole universe was joining the system, but he honestly didn’t think about there being aliens. Now, however, he had a problem. He didn’t know this creature’s intentions, abilities, nor how it got to level 21.

Over the past two weeks, he had spent most of his time practicing with his spear, mostly adapting bo staff techniques and leveling up. He was shocked that something was so far ahead of him in levels. He looked down on the shimmering mirage and fell into thought. He shouldn’t just kill it. Hell, for all he knew, it was the MLK of its species. Not to mention that if he killed it, its friends might have some way to find out. He didn’t know what the friends of a level 20+ mage could do, so he should give it a chance.

He patted his hands around the creature’s body. It felt vaguely humanoid in shape and wore what felt like leather and fibrous cloth. He lifted the unconscious creature and placed it in a sitting position against a large tree trunk. He took the paracord from the trap and untied it, using it to tie the “Thrall”’s arms behind its back. He then tied its legs together. He took out another roll of paracord and wrapped it tightly around the being’s upper body and the tree trunk. Two loops held its chest and arms against the tree, and another went around the neck of the creature. He then took out one of the bags he held sand in so many weeks ago. He opened the bag and forced it over the thing’s head.

Finally, he stood up and moved behind the tree it was tied to. He took out his spear and twirled it around his body in a complex kata. When he moved, the spear flowed forward. He controlled it like a part of his own body. He had removed the handle plated from his combat knife and put the knife’s tang into a slot in the spear shaft. The spear was now a much more reliable weapon. That was demonstrated as he stepped left, and the spear flicked out in a thrust before retreating. He spun the spear, so its butt slammed into the side of his imaginary opponent’s head.

As the spear whistled through the air, a leaf drifted gently to the ground. He spun and cut out with the spear, and the two halves of the leaf drifted to the ground. He fell backward into an offensive stance and was about to break into another quick series of moves when he heard a soft groaning sound.

He spun and quickly walked back to the tree his captive was tied to. He reached around the tree with his spear and nudged the mirage with it. He heard whatever it was speak softly, “What? What’s going on?”

Octavius blinked, I guess he speaks a common humanoid language. “What are you?”

The mirage shifted slightly, “Huh? Who’s there?”

Octavius merely poked the creature again, “Answer the question.”

“What? I’m a thrall. What are you?”

Octavius nodded slightly but didn’t answer the question, “What are you doing here?”

The thrall hesitated for a moment, “Well, I uh, I’m part of the tutorial, of course!”

He looked over the mirage at the obvious lie, “You are also a horrible liar. Now, what are you doing here?” He slowly enunciated every word.

The mirage froze for a moment before the paracord holding it down went tight as it began to struggle desperately.

Octavius smacked the side of its head with his spear, “Stop that. You know what I think? I think that you are going to tell me what I want to know. I know you have a low constitution because my poison was able to knock you out quickly, you have low strength because you can’t force your way through the ropes tying you down, and don’t have any spells that can help you because you’d have already used them. So, What. Are. You. Doing. Here.”

At those words, the mirage began to shift violently. Loud thumping sounds rang out in the confines of the forest. Octavius jumped out from behind the tree to see what was happening. What he saw surprised him. The rippling mirage was shifting back and forth. It was clear that the thrall underneath was trying to brain itself on the tree. Octavius leapt towards it, “Fuck! Stop that!”

That was a mistake. Even though Octavius couldn’t see it well, the reverse apparently wasn’t true; the thrall could see his general movements through the coarse weave of the sack. In his haste to stop the creature, he had carelessly forgotten to move his spear. He had plenty of control to not accidentally stab the thrall, but that didn’t stop the thrall from slamming its head as far forward as it would go. The spear pierced its forehead like it was only flesh, with no skull underneath.

You have slain Xecsif - Thrall (F) (Lvl 21) and gained 3928 EXP (1/2)(21)(1)(3)(1.25)(100)

“Shit.” He cursed softly. I guess that if it was going to die, I’d rather get 4000 EXP than nothing, but still…

The moment the creature, Xecsif, died, it became visible. It had a dark gray coloration with wide pitch black eyes staring blankly at him. It was small and thin, maybe 5’6”, and wore a gray cloth undershirt and brown leather vest. Its face was strangely rounded, with small spikes on its head where hair would be on a human, a pronounced brow ridge, and an extremely weak chin. Each hand had four long, spindly fingers. The creature was decidedly alien.

Octavius furrowed his brows and reached forward to touch the being’s arm. It was hard like he thought. It had even less give than flesh, which made him wonder how his spear pierced its head with barely any force. He felt its joints and found them hard as well. Huh? How does it move then?

He was entirely surprised when he realized that the being’s skin was becoming softer and softer as time passed. I should not think of this thing as following Earth’s evolutionary path. It clearly has some other substance instead of skin. Maybe some type of exoskeleton that it can control the rigidity of? Interesting, but not important at the moment.

He began to pat down the creature. As he ran his hands down the leather-clad sides of it, he found a knife. It was small and angled more like something to eat with than a knife meant for combat. He continued his pat-down and found nothing else notable.

He then looked at the being’s clothes and his own before looking back at the being and sighing softly, “Why couldn’t you be a foot taller?”

His clothes were worn and faded. His first set of fatigues was torn and stained with blood, so he tore it into cloth strips to use for any number of things. His plate carrier was whole but had faded splatter of blood-stained into it. The rest of his clothes were intact but worn. This was his second and only other set of fatigues, so he’d have definitely liked to have another set of clothes that fit him.

As he began to remove the paracord, he noticed something that stood out. On the thrall's right hand was a metal ring. The ring was the color of forge scale and basic, except for the three white gems and silver inlay in the patterns of strange runes. He removed the ring from its finger and identified it.

Ring of Illusion (Rare) - While worn, the ring uses the wearer's mana to bend light, causing the wearer to become nearly invisible to those with low perception. If the wearer is out of mana while the ring is worn, it will break. Cost (50 mana/minute)

Octavius’s eyes widened. This explained why the thrall was so weak for level 21. It probably put all of its stat points in intelligence. He wondered what its intelligence must have been to remain invisible while unconscious. He knew that one got 20 points of mana for every point of intelligence, or at least he did. That meant that the thrall most likely had well over a hundred intelligence points, depending on how long he was unconscious.

He carefully placed the ring into a pouch on his belt, continued to coil the paracord into a bundle, and placed it in his rucksack. He decided not to reset this trap, he wasn’t sure why the thrall would rather die than reveal its purpose, but he didn’t want to leave any clues that he knew the thrall even existed if any of its friends came looking.

He picked up the thrall, finding it surprisingly light, and carried it the mile to the stream that fed the pond he camped near. He threw the corpse into the stream without weighing it down at all. The quickly moving current would carry the body away and make it impossible to trace back to an exact location. Once he was finished, he went back to his camp to collect all of his things; it was time to find a new place to camp. As he set off, he could've sworn he felt a slight tingling at the base of his skull, but it disappeared after a second and he thought nothing of it.

Later that day, Octavius marched in a generally easterly direction. His spear rested on his shoulder as he marched ever onwards, leaves and detritus crunching softly under his boots. He walked from lunchtime into the early evening. He killed a few creatures on the way, gaining a couple of hundred EXP, but he was largely preoccupied.

His mind was focused on the thrall he had caught before. He had seen and even fought enemies that would rather die than surrender. The problem was that these types of fighters always had something to fight for. That line of thought inevitably led to the question of what the thrall was willing to die to protect. Looking at the situation logically, the thrall could be described as a scout. He could get in and out without being noticed and could gather intelligence.

Faced with the unknown, Octavius instinctively fell into his old captain’s mindset. He had to understand the enemy to be able to predict their moves. He created a list of what he knew. The thrall was well equipped, had a high level, and was willing to die rather than speak. He could infer that the thrall was part of a larger group and was most likely a scout. He decided to keep his eyes and ears open, but he didn’t have enough information at the moment.

He continued to walk for another few dozen minutes until he heard a piercing high pitched scream, followed by a lower toned shout, “Back!”

Octavius only stopped for a moment to pinpoint the direction of the sounds before breaking into a run. As he got closer, he began to slow until he could see movement through a copse of trees. He stopped and analyzed the situation.

An older man was standing in front of some sort of beast, waving a big stick like a club. He took a swing before recovering and raising his club again. Behind the man was a young woman. In the woman's arms was a small child, maybe three or four years old.

Octavius crept closer until he could identify the beast attacking the two.

Common Raptor (Lvl 7)

It was a small feathered beast, with long claws and sharp teeth. It has a pale color, with some browns and greens mixed in. He scanned the area around them to see if the raptor had any friends in the area. After deeming the area empty of other threats, he bent down and picked up a small rock. He pulled back his arm before launching the rock forward.

It sailed through the air before hitting the side of the raptor. It let out a loud squawk before turning and charging Octavius’s position.

Once it turned behind some cover, and the two other humans couldn’t see it, he stabbed forward. The raptor made another squawking sound that quickly cut off as it died.

You have killed Common Raptor (Lvl 7) and gained 219 EXP (1/4)(7)(1)(1)(1.25)(100)

“What was that?” He heard the young woman say.

“Don’t know. Stay here; I’ll go ‘n check it out.” The old man responded, and the sound of footsteps approached Octavius’s position.

Octavius reached into his belt and removed the ring before carefully slipping it on his finger. The old man rounded the corner, and Octavius got a good look at him. He looked to be in his sixties, with short gray hair and a disorderly beard. Octavius unconsciously reached up to his own beard that had grown over the past two weeks. He kept his clean and untangled but wasn’t used to it yet.

The old man looked around before picking up the corpse of the raptor and dragging it back. Octavius followed him out and used identify.

Harold - Human (F) (Lvl 5)

He waited as Harold began to speak, “Well, I’m not knowing much about these things, but I don’t think they stab themselves to death. I think there’s another guy out there who came to help us out.”

The woman frowned slightly, “Did you see who it was?”

The man shook his head. “Nope, but I got us some supper,” he said, gesturing to the raptor.

The woman looked at the sun and spoke, “We still have daylight, and according to those hunters, The Sanctuary is only three more days walk to the west. I might know that the sun sets in the west, but I can’t navigate by stars. We should carry what we can of it and go. If we stop now, even if we walk into the night as we planned, we won’t get there by the day after tomorrow. I don’t want to spend any more time in the wilderness than I have to!”

The man nodded along and responded before taking out a pocket knife and starting to get to work on the raptor, but Octavius’s mind was racing. He hadn’t seen many people since the first day. He had come across a few groups but never interacted with them and had found multiple sets of human remains. He guessed that the ten thousand people in this tutorial were super spread out, but they seemed to be converging at this Sanctuary.

He was glad that someone was trying to establish order and civilization in this place. He might not be willing to sacrifice his life for a few strangers, but he still hoped that as many of the civilians survived as possible. He wondered how many people were left, and a window appeared.

Tutorial Status

Survivors : 7294/10000

Time Remaining : 79:19:41:13

If he assumed the proportion of fit young people to the senior and youth population was the same as on earth, he was surprised by how high the number was. He knew he had found a great many berries and edible roots, along with an abundance of animals, but he still assumed too many wouldn’t know where to look and would starve. Seems like I gave the human race too little credit. Later I should come back to this area and check out this Sanctuary. Maybe I could help out a bit.

He stepped behind a tree, removed the ring, and set off to find a new hunting ground with stronger beasts to fight.